Monday, 13 January 2014

Politico-ichthyology

I've mocked UKIP before, will do it again, and continue until they cease to be. This one started as a knockabout silly conversation on facebook, then grew into this four-stanza frippery...

The evolution of the kipper

In the Ediacaran,
were you the Campaign for Bacterial Dominance,
fearful of the Cambrian’s
explosion of diversity,
railing against multicellularity
and the mingling of membranes.

In the Devonian,
were you the Terrestrial Defence League
telling those lobe-finned coelocanth-types
not to start any of that
amphibian nonsense –
“geroff our land”,
early vegetables fearing herbivores.

In the Cretaceous,
were you the Fruitless Preservation Society,
using your blinkered
back-in-my-epoch fronds
to surround your little island with cones
trying to hold back the tide
and the flowering of petalled beauty.

In the Pleistocene (no not Plasticene)
were you the Cro-Magnon Independence Tribe
denying Ice Age cycles,
shouting ‘no to the land-bridge’
and ‘neanderthals out’ –
those horrid proto-Europeans
coming here and taking all our flints –
Britain doesn’t exist yet
but to you it’s already full.